OOOH!cake

I'm back! =) I've been missing because my camera's been dead so I haven't been able to take ANY photos. But since my mom so kindly bought me a brand-spankin'-new one, I'm here to celebrate! Yippee!

I had 4 egg whites leftover from a dairy-free vanilla creme anglaise I made for to go with my new-found love, sticky date pudding, and because I NEVER have egg whites lying around, I was desperate to find the RIGHT recipe since such a chance is so rare. I wanted to make this meringue pie crust, or baby meringues to crush with fresh strawberries and the vanilla creme anglaise but I reallllyy wanted to make these cookies I had a few days back. I'll describe them to you... they were flat-ish, and filled with almond silvers and chunks and chocolate bits scattered throughout it's chewy interior, all enrobed with a crunchy exterior. BUT I CAN'T FIND A RECIPE FOR IT.. I don't even know what it's called. Does anyone have any idea for a recipe? I asked the chef what was in it and she said eggwhites, almonds and sugar. Sounds simple but it's hurting my brain trying to figure it out... I settled for this recipe in the end. Both Fanny and Mary have used the recipe, each with their own interpretations... =) I followed Fanny's recipe, with the addition of chocolate slivers and chopped toasted nuts (I used toasted walnuts).


Something funny happened though. The first batch of my cookies I baked in the lowest shelf of my oven had their bottoms perfectly browned while the ones I baked in the middle shelf was still kinda..wet when I tried to peel them off the baking paper. Still yummy no doubt but... do you know why that happened??? Now those from the second shelf look like they have hollow bottoms! Maybe I should just fill the holes with chocolate icecream and be done with that! yum.

ENJOYYYY...

HELLO! I have finally returned. I have a thousand excuses as to why I've been missing but I think I'll pick the best few I could come up with.
1) I've been busy travelling to Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai
2) I've been too busy eating and since my mouth works so fast, the food gets devoured before I can take photos of them
3) I have been quite lazy.

Yeah, I think I'll settle for that. Laziness, the disease many of us suffer from. Fortunately though, the other wonderful bloggers have no such illness so the rest of us are lucky, because we'll always have something yummy to read about. =)

But I am back. And i will blog often, or at least make a big effort to. =) So how has everyone been? Today I officially baked the first sweet treat since my return to Melbourne. Gluten free sugar cookies. I got the original recipe from here but I had no shortening or baking powder or gluten free flour mix. And i was too lazy to pre-mix the flour blend so I changed the recipe almost entirely. and I'm glad to report that this is probably the first gluten free sugar cookie that I actually like. I used expeller pressed coconut oil and normal veg oil to substitute the shortening. Replaced sugar with half icing sugar and half raw vanilla sugar (for crunch and coz I had no other sugar). I also added 1/2 tsp of xantham gum and 1 tsp lemon juice for added 'flair'.

I don't know how it'll settle tomorrow since alot of cookies are so promising when they first step out of the oven but then loses all their sparkle after sitting around for abit. I used my new cookie cutter that I got from the Harvest Picnic at Hanging Rock yesterday. It was really eye opening, bought some gluten free plum pudding (since Easter is coming) and this amazingamazingamazing peach and vanilla chutney thing. Ohgosh it's absolutely stunning, with notes of apple and thick luscious syrup just dripping off the edges of the chunks of peach.

Here's Spot trying to get friendly with the cookie! Spot fits snugly in the middle of my palm, so you can pretty much imagine how darn big the cookie is. I realized we didn't have a container big enough for the cookie so I had to snap it in two before packing it away. Least I got a photo of it.

Sorry for the previous terribly sad post. I promise I'm all sparkly again. Dedicating one day a week at least to baking sometimes I want to eat, I've decided that this week's should be the cashew recipe that I saw on CookieMadness a while back. It's been on my mind for awhile-I mean anything that combines sweet and salty is a winner by me. It's sad how there isn't sweet popcorn here in Melbourne. The people here are definitely missing out, there's nothing better than ordering a bucket of popcorn and having it half sweet and half salty. The best part is rummaging through the layer of sweet to get to a salty popcorn cluster which gets you started on that sweet sugar trip all over again. CAN YOU SAY YUMMY? Too bad, they know not of such pleasures in life. =)

BACK TO COOKIE...
It was from the Betty Crocker round up and while I don't have photos to show because mine are so unfortunately UGLY, you can head over here to take a look. I halved the recipe and made it gluten free and omitted a whole lot of things because I'm such a freak when it comes to 'fat'. I suck the fun out of cookie eating don't I? I wish Anna would send some over so I could try it in all it's glorious yumminess. I like my version, don't really miss the chocolate or the pretzels I left out to make it G.F. I'm not sure but I think I shouldn't have added the baking soda, or maybe halved the already-halved amount because it became too light for me. It is definitely also due to the gluten free flour used. Sometimes I miss normal baking. And I didn't use butter either in an attempt to cut out diary. OHWELLS. here's my version.

1.5 cups raw/dry roasted cashews
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp egg white
2 tsp salt
>The method is all on Anna's blog.

1 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 potato starch
2 tbsp almond meal
1 tsp baking soda (I might try 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

>Sift all together, set aside

4 tbsp expeller pressed virgin coconut oil, softened
4 tbsp natural peanut butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 eggs

75g dark chocolate, chopped

>Cream the coconut oil, peanut butter and sugar together, until veryvery well combined
>Add in the eggs and vanilla
>Mix in the dry ingredients with a very sturdy spoon, drop by rounded tbsp on a cookie sheet. This part is VERY tricky, because the batter is VERY STICKY. But it puffs up well, and doesn't spread much.

I know I haven't been updating much, much less talk about the liver detox which, by the way, I'm still trying to follow (whenever possible). Well I threw the detox to the wind last week seeing that it was my LAST *teen which calls for much mourning and therefore, the overload of sweets and salties and ahem, more sweets. The previous post has already addressed the first of my birthday collection of sweets: brownies! And with regards to the birthday cake, it's been made and devoured, and I couldn't find the time to take a photo. Too busy scarfing the lovely moist orange almond cake.

Orange almond cake seems to be th favourite choice for flourless or gluten-free cakes. Everytime I see a gluten-free cake at a cafe or restaurant chances are it's an orange almond cake. Don't get me wrong, i LOVE orange and almond, put them together and you've got me hooked and so when I baked this orange almond cake from Sweet Alternative by Ariana Bundy, I half expected it to be the same dense, dense cake, similiar to the one I had at Cafe Trevi on Lygon street. Somehow it was a whole heap lighter and I'm guessing the Cafe Trevi one, as with the other flourless orange almond cakes around town, are made by creaming butter and sugar, while mine had no butter or oil but tasted more like heaven than anything else really. Reminds me of the orange cake made at The Raffles Hotel which was sensational (coz i got to pick at some while working there) and the method was the same. Immerse an orange in boiling water and simmer for 2 hours, puree and use. =) MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. But let's move onto cookies now.

Baked my birthday cookies yesterday, added a whole ton of chocolate chunks and chips and walnuts and I'm all smiles. Recipe was adapted from here because I needed a cookie that didn't use butter (because I have none and butter makes me feel guilty). I thought to myself that if I didn't use butter, I could add more chocolate and feel less bad. =) The cookies were good, but somehow they puffed up too much, despite me flattening them before baking so I had to flatten them once more while they were in the oven and it created a cool marbled effect from the melted chocolate chunks I added in, but somehow they were still a little too light for my liking. I think I'll add in 1/4 cup almond meal next time and remove the baking powder from the mixture. The recipe isn't vegan anymore because I had to add an egg to bind the ingredients as gluten-free mixtures are usually stickier than wheat flour ones. But I loved the taste and they're a whole heap better than many gluten free cookies I've had so here's the recipe that I used, with my adaptations.

Finally I got round to bake Amaretti and I had no problem deciding on using Cream Puff's treasured recipe because it looked so promising and seriously, no one can say no to a family secret recipe. Her recipe is designed to yield 50-70 cookies and rightly so since they are absolutely delicious morsels of delight but seeing that I'm about the only one who's gonna be eating them, I cut the recipe in 4 and ended up with 25! =) I suppose I made them a little smaller than intended.

Here's the recipe in 1/4
170g ground almonds
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg
1 tsp almond extract
raw whole almonds
extra 1/2 cup raw sugar

1) Mix ground almonds, cocoa and sugar together
2) Add in egg and almond extract, mix well
3) My mixture looked a little crumbly but held together when I rolled them into little balls
4) Roll the balls in the 1/2 cup of extra sugar
4) Line them up on parchment paper and press an almond into each cookie
5) Bake at the bottom rack of the oven at 180 degrees celcius for 10 minutes, then move to middle rack and bake for further 5 minutes. Let cool and serve! =)

Pumpkin Spice Muffin from Sweet Alternative by Ariana Bundy

1 ½ cup GF all-purpose flour ( 1 cup white rice flour + scant ¼ cup buckwheat flour + packed ¼ cup potato starch)

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp xantham gum

2 tsp cinnamon powder

½ tsp ginger powder (optional)

3 ½ tsp pumpkin spice/ all spice

2 free range eggs

½ cup maple syrup + 2 tbsp raw sugar

¾ unsweetened mashed pumpkin (boil until very soft and mash to make ¾ cup)

¼ cup sunflower oil

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Sift dry ingredients together and set aside

1. whisk the eggs with the maple syrup and add the vinegar, mix to combine
2. blend it into the flour mixture and add in pumpkin puree
3. stir in walnuts and spoon in 10 cupcake liners and bake at 175 degrees celcius for 18-20 minutes.

and because I DID solemnly swore that I was up to no good, here's some awesome peanut butter cookies, gluten-free of course.

Everyone knows I'm an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie kinda girl. No, let's not jump to specifics. I'm an oatmeal cookie kinda girl-forget the chocolate chip, peanut butter's just as good. But the whole Liver Detox and Low Allergy thing has some downsides, especially when it comes to cookies. Baking cakes with substitutes or muffins even, is not too big a deal, I might even find it better to eat. I feel better eating it and I have heaps of fun baking it. But the few attempts of low-fat cookie baking hasn't reeaaalllyyy worked out for me. Maybe til this one...it's not low fat or anything but definitely better for you, because the fat in it might have some benefits. I was inspired by Cooking Well's tahini chocolate chip cookies and Baking Bite's entry on baking chewy cookies and decided that I deserved some oatmeal chewychocochuck cookies but I really didn't want to feel bad so I came up with this!...

wheat-free chewychocochuck with tahini (makes 24-27)
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup rice flour
1 heaping tablespoon potato flour (starch)
1/2 tsp xantham gum
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 tbsp tahini
5 tbsp almond butter (storebought or home-made)
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp raw sugar*
1 egg
water*
75g dark chocolate
1/3 cup chopped up dried dates
1 1/2 cup wholegrain rolled oats

1) combine first 5 ingredients together in a bowl, set aside
2) In another bowl, whisk butter, oil, tahini and almond butter together until smooth.
3) Add in egg and vanilla extract and whisk to comebine
4) Mix in the flours (mixture will be veryvery sticky)
5) Add in the oats and stir to combine, add 1-2 tbsp of water if too sticky
6) Add in chocolate and dates and mix well, adding 1-2 tbsp water to assist in mixing.
7) Bake at 175 degrees celcius for 12 minutes or longer if a crispier cookie is desired.
>The longer you bake it (16-17 min), the more chewy the dates will be, a little like raisins.

*I didn't add sugar when I baked mine and the bits without dates or chocolate were a little bland therefore I suggest adding a few tablespoons of raw sugar
**The cookies can even be gluten-free if GF rolled oats are used!
***I added peanut butter to half a batch but there wasn't much difference in the final texture so..save your calories!=)

Everyone's got a favourite cookie. Some like the melt-in-your-mouth type of shortbread or like a huge flat crispy chocolate speckled cookie while others may like a beautifully colored buttery sugar cookie. I'm more of a chewy cookie kinda girl. Chewy and oaty. Something about oatmeal cookies make me wanna just eat more. Might be the fact that some of the un-softened oats provide a great workout for your tongue and you try to fish them out from the back of your mouth or maybe it's just that it lasts a little longer because you've gotta chew. Don't know and honestly, don't care. hahaha! I just know that when I crave cookies, it's usually this cookie and it's bad, because it'll clog my arteries and one day I won't be able to move or bake them ever again. So, I made them low fat. hahahhaha and they're not half bad.

But seriously, because I know they're lower in fat, I just wanna eat more. But judging by the fact that the entire batch of 30 over cookies has less butter than 12 of their fattier counterparts, I feel a whole lot lighter, no I meant, better =)

3 tbsp butter (use margarine if you want)
5 tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup applesauce, I used sweetened (if using unsweetened, add more sugar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp caster sugar
3/4 a.p flour*
3/4 almond meal*
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg (or 2 egg whites)
2 tbsp fat-free milk (I used fat-free soy milk)
1.5 tsp vanilla
3 cups wholegrain oats
1 cup addition of choice: chocolate chunks/ raisins/ white choc/ apricots/ nuts

1) Cream butter, p.b and sugars together
2) Add in applesauce, milk, egg and vanilla, mix well
3) Add in flour, almond meal and baking soda
4) Add in oats and your addition of choice (Mine's chopped up chocolate)
5) Drop by tbspfuls onto baking sheet and bake at 175 degrees celcius for 10 minutes or so
6) EAT alot of them and be happy. =)

*You can replace all of the almond meal with flour. I just prefer using almond meal

I obviously added in more peanut butter because I am a PB FREAK and next time, I'm adding in raisins and cinnamon and white choc chunks instead of dark&milk choc. So there, lower fat-not really. heh!

*UPDATE: I just ate these when they've cooled and they're alot tougher so it's not good but I suppose you could always toast them for a cookie thats crunchy and filled with melty chocolate bits. =)

Say 'chewy chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies' reallly quickly and it ends up sounds like chewychocochuck oatmeal cookies. Yeah, sounds pretty darn good still! Well, I was being all excited yesterday and decided to bake a batch of apple pie muffins for MuffinMonday03 so I used my new cookbook, the one I got for $2.95 on my way to uni. It's one of those small little books that doesn't have the face of a superchef celebrity or overly glossy photos that you could eat out of the page but it still held promise for me. Like it might contain some little secret this lady never told anyone and I got to find it out. Okay so maybe it's unfair to blame it on the author but the muffins tasted like CARDBOARD. I know it probably is alot due to my own fault, i DID substitute half the butter for applesauce, and i forgot to put the eggs in and did it right at the end. Okay, fine, I admit, it's my fault. The apple slices I placed on top and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar tasted really good though. So, thanking god i only baked a batch of 6 muffins (half the recipe), I picked all the apple slices off and threw the rest out. I'm not in an apple-y mood anymore. I might try Orange Poppy Seed muffins or Chocolate Cinnamon muffins instead. OOOH! I'm getting all inspired now. =)

So, faced with the disappointment and a stomach hungry for something buttery and bad for me, I decided I have had enough of wanting to eat chewy oatmeal cookies and decided to BAKE them. Oh and Cookie Madness doesn't really help and since I read the blog 10 times a day over and over again (god, I'm like a freaking stalker), I just needed and i mean, NEEDED to bake my favourite chewychocochuck oatmeal cookies. Funny, I tried baking them for Chinese New Year this year as gifts for people but they turned out less than perfect. Might be Australia or the fact that my modified recipe was here, but the cookies are just more Aussie inclined. I have had 12 of these cookies in the last 12 hours. thats 200 calories times 12. oh, I think I've exceeded my daily calorie intake. Might as well have one more...

My Favourite ChewyChocoChuck Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 cups quick-cooking oats*
couverture dark chocolate (chopped into chunks, i heart chunks)*
milk chocolate (chopped into chunks)*
2 tbsp creamy peanut butter*

1)Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2)Add in eggs one at a time, mix well, then add in extracts, mix well again
3)Add in baking soda, spelt flour and almond meal, mix well
4)Add in the chunks of chocolate and the quick cooking oats and mix until your arm falls off (kidding)
5)Finally, add in the peanut butter and swirl it around!
6)Bake at 180 for 12 minutes? I can't remember, until the edges brown and it cooks more on cooling. Don't wait until it's completely brown then you'll have a really hard cookie.
7) STORE IN AN AIRTIGHT CONTAINER. I love tupperware. I'm turning into my mom.=)

*You can use normal rolled oats, just not instant. Apparently, the difference between rolled oats and quick cooking is just the thickness of the oats. I can't find quick-cooking oats in Singapore, maybe thats why they weren't as yummy when I baked them there.
*You decide how much chocolate you wanna dump in, you can use white chocolate and almonds or add in some cocoa powder or raisins or cinnamon...you get the picture.
*Peanut butter is optional but everyone loves peanut butter...=)

Been a big weekend and I'm glad to say I'm back here, writing about food again, in front of my TEEVEE. oh YAYY!=) We're bonding.

anywhos, It was Maria's birthday this weekend but I didn't make it to her party so here's a birthday cupcake for you doll!


happy birthday babe!=) History class wouldn't be the same without you!

MOOOving onto stuff I've baked this week...fat-free cookies. That's what it's called because it has no butter or oil, egg yolk-less so it's pretty healthy. The sugar content is low but it uses Karo (golden syrup) which has very high GI so, I tried to reduce the amount of golden syrup and replace it with a little raw sugar and some sweetened applesauce because reviewwers of the recipe all agree that the batter was very sticky so I was hoping the applesauce would ease with the stickiness...Unfortinately, the batter was STILL sticky, maybe because I used 1 egg and 1 egg white instead of 3 egg whites...

Anyway, the flavour was veryvery good, and it baked up crispy on the egdes and cakey on the inside, chewy a little, and i added CHOCOLATE CHIPS...i couldn't help it. HAD TO ADD SOME FAT IN. heehee. =) FUN! here's how it goes...

1 1/2 cup flour (I used Spelt)
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Vanhouten)
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup - 2 tbsp golden syrup
3 tbsp sweetened applesauce
1/4 cup chocolate chips
3 egg whites (I used 1 egg and 1 egg white)

Preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius
Mix flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar and salt together.
Stir in the golden syrup, applesauce, egg and chocolate chips.
Batter will be veryVERY sticky
Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of batter and bake for 7-8 minutes, cookies will be soft.
They will harden on cooling.
*I baked bigger cookies and baked for 10 minutes. I heart big fat coookies. COOOOKIEEE.=)


YAY TO ALMOST FAT FREE!=)

Next time, using this as a base recipe, I will try adding oats, raisins, peanut butter, chocolate chunks, and fiddle with it for other cookie variations. =)

Just because...I've been inconsistent in updates, I shall do one thats filled with pictures today!=) The cookies above are the Alfajores I baked Vee...quite a while ago. I forgot that Adrian had already passed me the photos and only just discovered them. THEREFORE, here are the long overdue photos. Obviously a ton nicer than my usual ones because Adrian's a star and he so kindly took professional shots for me. =) goooodie!

Next! here's some photos of the baking process of my Muddy Chocolate Cake, taken from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2. It's very much a moist dense chocolate cake, with a flavour that isn't took sweet. Perhaps I might even use darker chocolate next time. I used the Nestle Plaistowe Couverture chocolate but the flavour wasn't as deep and dark as I'd like it to be. Or maybe I might substitute a couple tablespoons of flour with cocoa instead. you reckon?

Muddy Chocolate Cake from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2
300g dark couverture chocolate, chopped
250g butter
5 eggs, seperated
1/3 caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup plain all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 130degrees celcius (260 fahrenheit)
Melt butter and chocolate over a low heat and stir until smooth, set aside
Place egg yolks, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat until thick and pale
Place the eggwhites in a seperate bowl and beat until stiff peaks form
Fold chocolate mixture into egg yolk mixture
Sift over the flour and baking powder and gently fold through
Carefully fold egg whites through as well
Pour into a 20cm (8in) round cake tin lined with nonstick paper and bake for 1 hr 15 mins
Cool in tin and spread cooled cake with a chocolate ganache
*serve this cake at room temperature


Egg whites ready to be folded into chocolate/egg yolk mixture

Next on the agenda is the fruit crumble that I baked to bring to Adelle's house for our little potluck. Happy to report that it was well and it was devoured! I am beaming with pride and guess what! I didn't follow a recipe! hahaahahah! *giggles* I'll try remembering roughly what i put in...

Fruit Crumble, mostly apple.
3 granny smiths, sliced thinly (each quarter into 4/5 pieces)
275g pears from a tub (the fresh pears were insanely ugly so i had no choice), syrup drained and pears slices (not too thinly) and rinsed
handful of blueberries just because I had them in the fridge
handful of raisins just because they were on the counter top

about 1 3/4 cups plain flour
3/4 butter, cold and chopped into tiny cubes
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar (mixture of brown and white is fine)

FOR THE FRUIT:
Mix apples in 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar and big splashes of cinnamon, stir in 1/2 tsp of cornflour and sautee in a pan until apples are tender

because the pears are soft, just mix in some cinnamon and the raisins and blueberries, set aside while apples are cooling

CRUMBLE:
Rub the flour into the cold butter pieces or process in a food processor until it resembles breadcrumbs. Not ALL have to look fine, some of mine were big splodges. Then, mix in cinnamon and sugar.

PUT IT TOGETHER:
mix the all the fruit toether and place in preferred pan, I used a regular square pan. Sprinkle liberally with the crumble and put into a 180degreecelcius oven for 15 mnutes and check if the crumble is brown. Bake until crumble is golden brown (the blueberries will bubble a bit through the sides but it looks pretty anyway. rustic even! hehe.



ENJOYYYY with heeeeeeeeeaps of vanilla icecream or vanilla custard. yums!

So today I was sitting on the tram on the way home after uni and guess what I saw. Two men, no less, carrying big Haigh's bags. oh yes, they were and believe me when I tell you I was jealous. *whines

ALLRIGHTY, everyone knows Easter is coming so I suppose those brown Haigh's paper bags contained something delectable and brown, and rich and sinful and all that kinda thing that makes my mouth just water. It has reduced me to forgetting words and I'm just busily swallowing my saliva. oh darn those two men. I want a chocolate bunny. Most kids wish for the real one, the furry kind, that supposedly hops around with big floppy ears and wiggle their noses. I JUST WANT THE CHOCOLATE TYPE.

Shan't whine anymore. I'm sure this is a big enough hint that I want a chocolate Easter bunny (oh there, I said it again). Baked some Alfajores during the weekend for Vee's birthday, turned out, I had too much batter so I just added some chocolcate chips to some and made some into jam thumbprints. oooh gooey jam. I'll post the recipe once I clean up the drool on my table. Right now my fingers are trembling from the cold, or maybe just from chocolate cravings...

bag of chocolate chips in my fridge, HERE I COME!=)